Dr. Prachi Anand

Brief Biography:

Academic Activities: Prachi has completed her doctorate from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Center for Biomedical Research, University of Delhi in March 2010. She has presented her research at several national and international scientific meetings including Caribbean Academy of Sciences (Antigua, Nov. 2010), Gordon Research Conference (New Hampshire, USA, July 2009), International Symposium of Nephrology (Dublin, Ireland, June 2008), Association of Clinical Biochemists in India (New Delhi and Patna Dec 2007, Dec 2005). She has been volunteered as a Judge at New York City Science and Engineering fair 2011. She has been an instructor for several Postgraduate and undergraduate research students during her Doctorate. Presently also she has been mentoring several undergraduate students.

Academic positions:

None

Research interests:

Research: During her doctorate she worked towards the therapeutic approaches of Diabetes mellitus, a debilitating disease known since antiquity.  She was able to successfully isolate   a few antidiabetic compounds in fairly pure form from a medicinal plant and was able to elucidate their antidiabetic mechanism of action by in vitro and in vivo studies. She has also published five articles in peer reviewed journal. 

My research work in PhD followed in this direction to elucidate the mechanism of action of new antidiabetic compounds isolated from natural products, to develop a new drug candidate for diabetes. This field helped to gain good knowledge of research from the basic grass root level to advanced applied sciences. It is known that there are many side effects associated with prolonged use of insulin and other antidiabetic drugs which are in use at present for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, the incidence of which is higher all over the world. So lot of work is going on on natural, especially herbal drugs because of their effectiveness, less side effects and relatively low cost. I am a very self motivated person and believe that personal motivation is what drives us internally and externally to succeed in whatever we want to succeed in. To  explore  the  unknown,  search  for  explanations,  and  utilize  the  new-found  ideas  for  the  benefit  of  the  mankind  is  my  dream.

I have been working for the welfare of mankind towards the therapeutic approach of diabetes and came out with a semi purified hypoglycemic principle from Brassica nigra seeds a common Indian spice which had a very high margin of safety and with no side effects. I published my findings in two papers (Anand P. et al., 2007 and Anand P. et al., 2009). On the other hand, I have purified a single compound Cinnamaldehyde form the bark of Cinnamomum zeylanicum, which is a very common Chinese and Indian herbal medicinal plant. Cinnamaldehyde is a very small molecule but acts very elegantly as an antidiabetic agent. Obesity which is very common phenomenon in Diabetes, this compound was shown to be acting on adipose cells by increasing their insulin sensitivity, decreasing resistance and thereby acting as an antiobesity agent also. These findings were also published recently (Anand P. et al., 2010). Though the compound was not a new finding but its antidiabetic and antiobesity action was presumably new. The compound is a very small molecule and it is effective at very lower doses in nanomolar concentrations. It does not produce any side effects even at fifteen times of its effective dose. The effective dose was found to be very less than the drugs already in use for diabetes treatment. The experiments were conducted in vivo on chemically induced diabetes animals (rats) and in vitro on adipocytes cell line.  All the experiments were self designed and then discussed with my thesis mentors and thereby was able to produce such promising results. All the experiments were conducted independently. 

Any other information:

Journal Reviewer: Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology and Diabetes, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice

Society Affiliations: New York Academy of Sciences, American Diabetes Association

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